TPC Journal V8, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 4 321 Table 2 Hierarchical Regression Counselor Perspective B SE b β R 2 Δ R 2 Step 1: Control Variables Client Outcome Pretest Counselor Social Desirability .974 .012 .048 .450 .884 .001 .781 .781* Step 2: Counselor Perspective Client Outcome Pretest Counselor Social Desirability Counselor CCCI-R Counselor WAI-S .985 .282 -.563 .192 .047 .451 .198 .167 .894* .027 -.157* .062 .796 .015* Note. N = 72 clients; CCCI-R Counselor Multicultural Competence; WAI-S Working Alliance. * p <.05. Dependent Variable: Client Outcome Posttes t. Discussion The aim of this investigation was to explore the relationship between client outcomes, counselors’ multicultural competence, the working alliance, and social desirability from both clients’ and CITs’ perspectives. Hierarchical regression results indicated that clients’ perspectives of their CITs’ multicultural competence and the working alliance did not predict client outcomes, although CITs’ perceptions of their multicultural competence did, modestly, after controlling for counselors’ social desirability scores. In a related investigation, Owen et al. (2011) compared differences in perceptions of counselors’ multicultural competence between clients and CITs. Results from their intra-class correlation (ICC) analysis indicated that CITs’ perceptions accounted for 8.5% (ICC = .085) of the variance in client outcomes, although clients’ perceptions of CITs’ multicultural competence were not related to clients’ counseling outcomes, which is consistent with the findings from this investigation. In contrast, results from this investigation on the working alliance and lack of predictive ability on client outcomes are incongruent with previous research that indicates a strong association between the working alliance and client outcomes (Horvath, Del Re, Flückiger, & Symonds, 2011; Norcross, 2011). Although results from one hierarchical regression did not indicate significant predictability of the working alliance on client outcomes, a Pearson product correlation conducted before regression analysis supported the positive associations between clients’ perceptions of CITs’ multicultural competence and the working alliance, as well as CITs’ perceptions of their multicultural competence and the working alliance. Further, correlational results indicated a small association between clients’ and CITs’ perceptions of the working alliance, and between CITs’ social desirability scores and CCCI-R responses. Potential explanations for some of the insignificant findings in this investigation include the cross- sectional research design on the constructs of multicultural competence and the working alliance. In a cross-sectional research design, the researcher looks at a snapshot of constructs at one point in time (Gall et al., 2007). In this investigation, multicultural competence and the working alliance were assessed